MTN partners artificial intelligence platform to fight MoMo fraud

Telecoms giant MTN Ghana has secured a partner for its artificial intelligence platform to fight mobile money fraud.

General Manager for MTN Ghana Mobile Money, Eli Hini, reportedly made the revelations during a virtual forum with journalists from across Ghana.

“We have already secured a provider for the artificial intelligence platform and we are currently going through the documentation pending implementation,” he was quoted in a report by techgh24.com.

According to the report, the General Manager for MTN Ghana Mobile Money did not disclose the AI partner, saying that further details will be provided later.

At the recent virtual annual general meeting (AGM) of the telecoms market leader, Eli Hini announced that MTN was investing some US$2.5 million into artificial intelligence to be able to predict and trace fraudster activities on the mobile money platform.

This is because fraud has become a huge problem particularly on the MTN mobile money platform, largely because it is the most used space and has the biggest market share of about 70%.

Eli Hini noted that they already have systems that are able to track and locate fraudsters and cause their arrest, adding that so far, intelligence for MTN has led to the arrest of at least 40 fraudsters operating from various parts of the country, and they are each in police custody pending prosecution.

According to him, MTN is also in the process of building a complete forensic lab for Ghana Police to enhance their ability to deal with MoMo fraud cases in particular.

“We will continue to invest in strategies, systems and processes to ensure that our MoMo platform remains safe and secured – but it would also require our customers to pay attention to the education on MoMo so that the fraudsters would not take advantage of them,” he added.

He explained that the weakest link in the mobile money value chain is the customer, because fraudsters cannot and have never been able to infiltrate the MTN MoMo network, except to target customers and capitalize on the ignorance to defraud them.

Eli Hini urged customers to remember that MTN would never make any official call to them and do any discussion or transaction regarding their MoMo wallet on phone, so such calls should be seen as fraudulent and be report to MTN via the various reporting channels.

The reporting channels are – SMS to short code 1515 or email to mobilemoneystr@mtn.com.gh; or one can report to any MTN Service Center, the Ghana Police or call 100 on MTN and make a report.

Eli Hini also urged customers to pay attention to the many educative materials on MoMo that MTN churns out on their social media platforms and be advised accordingly.

MTN Mobile Money is currently the overwhelming market leader, but Eli Hini said it has not always been so, explaining that for the first five years of its operation, MTN MoMo never made any profits and yet the leadership of the company believed in the prospects and kept investing in it.